Innocent As Charged
by CSIJaina
Summary: A case blurs the lines between right and wrong for our favourite CSIs. An innocent boy’s life is at stake, but saving him may not be the right decision.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: The idea that started this story came to me during a philosophy of ethics class. We were discussing a paper written by H.J. McCloskey. I mean no infringement on his ideas, I just wanted to expand them and run with them a little, as the situation intrigued me. I also don't own any of the characters of CSI. They are owned by CBS and Alliance Atlantis Productions with Jeremy Bruckheimer Television. These characters just gave me too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Summary: A case blurs the lines between right and wrong for our favourite CSIs. An innocent man's life is at stake, but the decision to save his life is not as easy as it sounds.

**Innocent As Charged**

**Chapter One**

"We the jury find the defendant, John Mallory, innocent on all counts of rape and homicide that have been brought before him."

The jury's decision reverberated through Sara's head, even two hours after the fact. The man had been guilty, there was no doubt in anyone's minds, but he had an excellent lawyer. One of the evidence bags had shown signs of possible tampering, and Mallory's lawyer had blasted the crime lab for it. The bag hadn't been tampered with of course, but the lawyer had already done the damage and planted the seed of doubt in the jury's mind, thus discrediting everything the crime lab had brought forward against Mallory. In Sara's mind the lawyer had been grasping at straws, but unfortunately the court didn't see it that way and it had been taken out of the crime lab's hands. This man had viciously raped and murdered two seventeen year old girls, and now he was back out on the streets.

"Hey Sara," Nick's voice cut in to her thoughts. She glanced at her watch and realized that she had been sitting in the locker room for the last ten minutes doing nothing.

"You alright?" asked Nick, concerned.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about court today."

Nick came and sat down beside her. "I understand, Sara. I was there, too. I know this case meant a lot to you, but there was nothing you could have done. The jury saw the evidence, and they made their decision. I agree that it was the wrong decision, but unfortunately it's completely out of our hands."

"And you're okay with that, you're just going to let it go?"

"We have to Sara. You aren't helping anyone by beating yourself up about this, you know that. Sometimes in the course of our job, the bad guy gets away and there's nothing we can do about it."

"You don't seriously believe that?" asked Sara, incredulous to hear this coming from Nick of all people. Of anyone, she expected Nick to back her up in this.

"Okay, maybe not, but it's the best I can do. It wasn't yours, mine, or Grissom's fault. It was bad luck, and it's not fair, but we can't change it now. We'll just have to make sure that it never happens again. Now, how about we get some dinner before shift? I bet if we play our cards right, we can even get Grissom to pay, out of pity for us poor sufferers of the court lashing." He made a sad puppy-dog face to go with the suggestion, and started to whine, making Sara smile.

"I don't think Grissom will fall for that, and if you drool on any of his entomology books we're definitely out of luck, but dinner sounds good anyway." Sara let Nick pull her off the bench and they headed for the door, seeing if Grissom wanted to accompany them for dinner.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: See Chapter One

A/N: Sorry about the boringness of the first chapter, however it was necessary for the rest of the story. If anyone is actually reading this, I warn you know that I'm a massive perfectionist, just to write a 800 word chapter can take me up to two or three hours, and I may change previously posted chapters slightly to match a new and better idea. I know where this story is going, I'm just not sure of the best way to get there, so consider this whole thing a massive WIP until it is actually completely finished. Enough from me, on with some more exposition!

**Chapter Two**

Two weeks had passed since the court hearing, and things were getting back to normal. As sad as it sounds, the crimes had been typical, nothing out of the ordinary. It was a strange thing when you began to think of murder, homicide, and burglary as ordinary, but it was a sad fact of life. Especially in Las Vegas. Grissom got the call to head out to a crime scene in Henderson while he was still in his apartment getting ready for shift. The dispatcher said that it looked like a body dump, possible rape among other things. By the time he got down there Sara was already processing, taking photographs of the body and the site. Warrick and Catherine were surveying the area around the body, and Nick was checking the body itself, David having given him the all clear.

"Liver temp put her death approximately five hours ago. She shows outward signs of rape - bruising and tearing - as well as overt signs of other abuse, consistent with rough, non-consensual sex. Her lavidity doesn't match the position she's in right now, the blood settled to her back, not her side, suggesting she was dead for a couple of hours before her body was taken here. Looks like COD was strangulation, definite ligature marks on her neck, but I'm sure Dr. Robbins will give you a definitive answer when we get her into autopsy."

"Thanks David," Grissom replied half-heartedly. He was more focused on the girl herself. He could have sworn that he had seen her somewhere before.

"Look familiar?" the voice came from behind him. He turned to see Catherine looking down at the body with grim determination. "That's Erin Woolward. She was the daughter of Matthew Woolward, one of Las Vegas's biggest philanthropists. Multimillionaire, or he would be if he kept any of the money his casino makes. Instead he gives almost all of it to charity, keeping just enough for him and his daughter to live off of. She was following in his footsteps. Volunteered for all sorts of organizations, was planning on going to college to become a child psychologist after she graduated high school, so she could 'help those more needy than herself and her Dad'."

"And how do you know all this?"

"It's been a continuous story in the newspaper. The _Las Vegas Tribune_ has been following them for a couple of months now. The family is up for a humanitarian award at the end of the year."

Captain Brass walked up to the group. "Media's going to be all over this. Erin Woolward and her Dad were all over the news, and the public is not going to take kindly to Erin's murder, especially after Mallory walked out of that courtroom a couple weeks ago."

Grissom didn't need to be a political player to understand the ramifications of this situation. "We'll do what we always do. Tell them the bare minimum. Try to keep as much of this out of the news as possible until we get whoever did this."

"Well, we'd better find the guilty SOB soon," said Brass as the news vans began to pull up.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: The idea that started this story came to me during a philosophy of ethics class. We were discussing a paper written by H.J. McCloskey. I mean no infringement on his ideas, I just wanted to expand them and run with them a little, as the situation intrigued me. I also don't own any of the characters of CSI. They are owned by CBS and Alliance Atlantis Productions with Jeremy Bruckheimer Television. These characters just gave me too good of an opportunity to pass up.

Summary: A case blurs the lines between right and wrong for our favourite CSIs. An innocent man's life is at stake, but the decision to save his life is not as easy as it sounds.

**Chapter Three**

The week since they had found Erin Woolward passed as a blur for Sara. Erin had indeed been strangled, by what appeared to be a generic cotton rope. Previous to that she had been brutally raped and beaten, her body discarded like trash in the park. She had been in perfect health, up until someone decided to end her life. The team had relentlessly chased lead after lead, no matter how small. The dump site had been scoured five times, yielding nothing. Grissom, Warrick and Brass had interviewed friends, family, acquaintances, everyone they could think of and come up the same. Nick and Catherine had searched school records with the same result. Sara had delicately looked into Erin's personal life, feeling like she was invading Erin's privacy, yet knowing that it had to be done. She had found nothing that seemed out of place for this well-loved teenaged girl. They knew everything about Erin, except for who wanted her dead, and why. There was no physical evidence, and so far no other evidence either. Carpet fibers on Erin's clothes matched hundreds of cars in Vegas. However, despite all this Sara had a sneaking suspicion as to who the guilty party was, which is why she had called the rest of the team, _sans_ Grissom, to the break room. He would definitely not agree with her, and she wanted to see if she could get the support of the rest of the team before she went to him. "Alright guys, I think I know who did this." Everyone looked at her expectantly. "I think that it was John Mallory." There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at Sara, trying to decide if she was serious.

"Sara, I know that you're upset about Mallory walking, but that's not a good enough reason to accuse him," pointed out Nick, knowing he was treading on dangerous ground.

"That's not why I'm accusing him," defended Sara. "I've got evidence."

"Evidence that the other _four_ of us missed?" questioned Catherine, bringing weight to Grissom's conspicuous absence from the room.

"Well, no, not physical evidence, but evidence nonetheless." Sara plowed on before anyone had a chance to stop her. "Erin Woolward fits his victim profile perfectly. She's the right age and the right body type. She lived within a five kilometer radius of Mallory, just like the other two girls. She went to a neighboring school, and played on the same community soccer league as the previous victims. She was his type."

"What victim profile? Sara, I wasn't on that case but from what I understand he had no profile. He picked two random girls that lived nearby and then got caught. He wasn't a serial killer, he didn't stalk the girls and he didn't premeditate their murders. Mallory is a twisted individual, but neither of those girls had evidence of the brutality committed against Erin. They weren't strangled and you guys had plenty of evidence to nail him with. This crime was too perfect, too planned."

"So? He learned. He had six months in jail to plan this murder. He knew about Erin through the news, and he knew that she lived near him. He saw all the evidence that we had against him and avoided leaving any of it behind this time. Sometimes our only evidence might be a lack of it. Isn't that what Grissom says?"

Nick knew that Sara was stretching, and also knew how upset she had been after Mallory had gotten off. However, he, and everyone else in the lab knew how hard Sara had been pushing herself to find something in this case, almost as if to make it up to the two girls that had died before. "Okay…" he ventured, not wanting to provoke Sara. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to say, but he knew he had to say something. No one else was going to risk it. Luckily, he was saved by Grissom's head appearing in the doorway.

"There you all are. We've got a new lead. Meet me in interrogation." If Grissom found it suspicious that his team was in there without him, all looking mildly guilty, he made no mention of it.

Nick blew out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, and got up to follow Grissom. Warrick and Catherine had already beaten a hasty retreat. Nick was at the door before he realized that Sara wasn't following. "You coming?" he asked.

"You don't believe me, do you?" questioned Sara.

"It's not that we don't believe you, we just…" For the second time that night he found himself lost for words.

"No, I take it back. Don't answer that. It wasn't fair."

"This whole thing isn't fair, Sara. You already know that. Right now though, even if we did agree with you, there's no way we could get a warrant to search even Mallory's car, let alone a warrant for his arrest."

"I know, I know. I just feel like we're doing nothing!"

"We're not. Even if we can't get Mallory right now, we can still get whoever did this to Erin. So let's not keep Grissom waiting."

* * *

They all reconvened together in interrogation with Jim Brass, who looked the happiest that anyone had seen him for the past week.  
"Alright guys, here's the deal. Gil was going over some of the crowd pictures from the crime scene, and noticed a nervous looking kid hovering in many of the shots. I showed his picture around and learned that he went to the same school as the vic, but wasn't really a friend of hers. Luckily, it was enough to get him brought down, and he's waiting for us in interrogation now. Kid's name is Ryan Jeffries, 16 years old." After that quick debriefing, Brass turned on his heel and headed straight for the room. Grissom and Warrick immediately turned to follow, leaving Nick, Sara, and Catherine watching their retreating backs, looking kind of dumbstruck. Before they disappeared into the room, Grissom looked over his shoulder and called out, "See Sara, you can always rely on the evidence, no need to jump to conclusions." 

Sara's eyes widened, her cheeks turning slightly pink. Nick and Catherine stared at her, trying not to laugh. "Uh, right, well let's head over to observation. See what this guy gives us." Sara suggested, doing a poor job of ignoring their looks. They'd just turned to the doors leading out of the main hall, when none other than Conrad Ecklie came through the door opposite. Before they could beat a hasty retreat he spotted them, hurrying over with a pompous look on his face.

"Where is he?" Ecklie asked.

"Where is who" Sara questioned right back, knowing exactly who Ecklie was looking for.

"Grissom. Matthew Woolward demanded a press conference. He wants results. I want results. You guys have had a week now, and I have heard absolutely nothing from you. Grissom promised he'd be at the conference to share what he knew. So, I ask again, where is he?"

The three criminalists passed around a knowing look. Now they knew why Grissom had run so fast for the interrogation room. He thought he was pretty clever getting himself out of this press conference. However, Catherine wished that Grissom had at least thought to tell her about it. Now they were stuck dealing with Ecklie. She resolved to give Grissom a piece of her mind first chance she got. "Well Ecklie, he's actually interviewing someone right now, I'm sure the conference just slipped his mind. We'll send him right over as soon as he's done. I'm sure he would be happy to update you then." With that she tried to turn and leave, but Ecklie was faster.

"Hold on, interview. For the Woolward case? He has a suspect and he didn't tell me?"

"Not a suspect so much as a person of interest. We really don't know any more than that."

"Well, I'm sure it won't be too much trouble for you to give me this 'person of interest's' name?"

As much as they didn't want to give any information to Ecklie that he could misinterpret, the three of them didn't have much choice. There was no other way they were getting rid of Ecklie.

"I think Brass said his name was Ryan Jeffries, but really, we don't know anything yet. If you could wait a few minutes, I think that Grissom would be happy to fill in some more –"

"Thanks for that idea Sara, but I think that this will do for now. You three have been most helpful." With that Ecklie turned and strode back towards the lab. Sara felt her stomach sinking, no good could ever come of being useful to Ecklie.

* * *

A/N: Sorry, I know it's kind of boring. I promise that there will be a bit more excitement later on, I, uh, just have to write it first, and apparantly I'm better with the casefile, exposition stuff. However, I have an outline and some Grissom/Sara stuff's coming up, so hopefully it will get better! 


End file.
